Bentley archives

Land Rovers

Hurricanes, Seawater and Cars - a bad combination

If you’ve been watching the news these past few days you’ve
probably seen plenty of images of waterlogged cars. New York City alone has thousands of flooded
vehicles. Some were immersed to the tops
of the tires, while others were totally underwater. What will happen to them? All are junk; useful for scrap metal and body
panels only. But that’s not where many
will end up . . .

Most of the cars will be covered by insurance, and they will
be written off and sold as salvage. For
months to come, salvage auctions all over the East Coast will be processing
these cars. Some will look perfect, but
they aren’t. There’s a reason they were
declared scrap. If only they ended up
that way. The fact that they don’t is
one of the dirty little secrets of the insurance business.

When an insurance company declares a vehicle a total loss,
they are in essence buying the car from the owner at its pre-loss value. But insurance companies are not in the
business of fixing cars; they are in the business of money. Therefore their goal is to turn that piece of
totaled iron into cash in the most efficient way possible.

That’s where salvage auctions come in. Insurance companies
hire these auctions to gather the wrecked, burnt, and flooded cars from
individuals wherever they may be. They
then clean them up – if such a thing is possible – and auction them to the
highest bidder.

Bidders at these salvage sales are supposed to be recyclers
– junkyards, to use the more traditional term.
However, many buyers of flood cars are shady used car operations. These people don’t buy the salvage for parts.
They buy them to fix it up and sell – often to some unsuspecting used car
buyer.

Insurance companies could stop this practice in a moment, if
they wanted. They could require flood
cars to be cut up for scrap, and they could ban sales to so-called
“rebuilders.” Why don’t they do
that? Money. A buyer of scrap might pay $10,000 for a
flooded Porsche, because that’s the value of the salable parts. But another bidder might pay $15,000 knowing
he can sell the car to some unsuspecting motorist while it still drives.

From my perspective, it looks like that want the top bid –
which probably comes from a “rebuilder” – more than they want these ruined cars
off the road.

Why are they ruined, you ask? How can a car be ruined while it still looks
brand new, especially if it drives like new, too? Here’s how it happens . . .

The first thing to fail is the electrical system. Most
modern cars have wire harnesses running under the carpet – on the floor – and
many have control modules down there too.
If seawater rises above the door sills these areas will be
submerged. When that happens, salt water
invades the wiring, control units and electrical connectors and begins the
invisible process of corrosion that ends up like the rusty junk you see, washed
up on beaches.

Once it starts, there’s no turning back this process. The only cure would be to strip out all the
wiring and controllers and install new parts – a task that might cost $10,000
on an ordinary Toyota or Chevrolet, and that’s just the beginning . . .

When seats and upholstery are submerged their cushions and
innards become waterlogged. They can’t
dry because the water is sealed inside by impermeable vinyl and leather
coverings. So the water stays in their,
growing mold and rotting the interior from within. It’s not a very pretty picture, when you cut
it apart six months later. Once again,
it could be fixed, but the cost to take apart every bit of interior and wring
it dry would be prohibitive and destructive, because most of thise pieces were
never meant to be disassembled.

Then we come to the running gear. Modern cars were not designed to operate in
water. Seals and gaskets keep oil and
grease from escaping outward often can’t prevent seawater from making its way
inward. When salt water gets inside it
ruins the oil, and begins the familiar process of corrosion whenever it comes
in contact with bare steel.

Seawater damage to wheel bearings and axles may be insidious
– the bearings may fail one by one, over a period of years. But fail they will. The ocean will always win. The Army learned this when they started
driving truck up beaches – today, they strip and overhaul any axle assembly
that’s been in salt water for this very reason.
You can do that in an ordinary car, too, but the cost will be high and
it’s one more reason cars get scrapped.

The same thing happens in a engine. If the engine is running when submerged it
usually dies a violent death as incompressible water is sucked into the cylinders,
shattering or bending the pistons and rods.
If the engine is off, the damage may not be as apparent, but the
corrosion will begin inside, and the engine will fail long before its time. This will happen even if the oil is changed.

Insurance companies know these things. That’s why they declare flood cars to be
total losses. But to some dealers, they
look too good to scrap, and there’s money to be made.

These people will buy flood cars, change fluids, change
failed control units, and get the vehicles running as best they can. Then they offer them for sale, usually far
below book value. The cars often have
salvage titles, which tell buyers the cars are reconstructed, but buyers look
at the cars and tell themselves all is well, because they look so good. Wrong!
A saltwater flood car will never stop presenting problems; it was
written off originally for a very good reason.

A true repair of a saltwater flood car would consist of new
wiring and control units, dried out or new upholstery, and completely
overhauled or new drivetrain and running gear.
The cost of that work will far exceed the value of any ordinary car.

The take-away from all this:
Be very careful if you’re in the market for a used car in the next six
months. Steer clear of anything with a
salvage title, no matter how god it looks.
If a car has a clear title, look at where it’s from. If it lived in an
area impacted by Sandy – be very careful.

We are open from 8-5, Monday through Friday. There is a key drop in the front garage door for people who leave cars after hours.

We are New England's leading four-star authorized Bosch Car Service facility. Owner John Robison is a technical consultant to the Rolls Royce and Bentley owner clubs, the Land Rover club, and the BMW and Mercedes clubs. We're tech inspectors for the Porsche Club of America for regional track events. John's writing appears in many automotive magazines.